“Basically the unseen, the undiscovered artists that are still looking to break out in the space. Everyone at the bottom needs a leg up and UNDRGRND is the launch pad for them.”
The project began three years ago when Gisondi answered a Reddit post looking for writers. He joined a writing group but really wanted to work within the underground punk art scene and UNDRGRND just spiraled into being.
Gisondi has tried to attract VC money but cannot get any traction. Instead, he turned to a token and a membership card.
“As I was trying to fundraise with VCs, then it hit me that I needed a community first and give back to the people who believed in the project.”
UNDRGRND has launched what might be termed a social token with utility.
“I’m not doing a traditional token where you open a liquidity pool and everyone can buy it. This token for the marketplace will allow people to buy spots on the front page and promote their own work or another artist’s work.”
Gisondi has more than 1000 wallets within a single month. It can be slow but it also rewards people interested in the community. He has set up the token to number 500 billion which he acknowledges is a large number but he intends to reserve 50 percent of the supply into a DAO to act as a cushion.
While he has not listed on any exchanges, he has opened a partnership with PageDAO run by Dylan Daniel. This will give a real value to the tokens when they are paired with the Page token.
“I’m not into randomized airdrops but I am into rewarding people who support the community. I don’t want anyone to miss out – I’m building this for everyone. And I am asking people to bring in their friends and artists that believe in the same things that we do.
“People are helping out for free, but now I can reward them with a token, which through the pairing with PageDAO is beginning to grow in value.
“But we are not ready to list on the main exchanges. For now, I’m going to look for other partnerships with like-minded communities, such as PageDAO, and I’m finding more in the Superchain ecosystem on Optimism.
“Overall, my goal is to keep the token value low so that it continues to have utility. It will be used to highlight art and music. If it becomes too expensive then people won’t use it which would defeat the purpose.”
